Like exercise, stretching regularly can have great health benefits. Whether it’s pre or post workout, when you wake up, or while you’re at work, stretching can help to alleviate tension, increase flexibility, and boost circulation. As a result, you may find that regular stretching can help you to carry on your daily routine with increased energy, focus and stamina. With this in mind, here are some great ways to incorporate light stretching into your day.

When You Wake Up: Stretching first thing in the morning is a great way to wake up your muscles and shake off any stiffness that you may have developed during sleep. Start off slow and easy by rolling your shoulders or taking a careful bend to touch your toes. For an additional shoulder stretch, clasp your hands straight out in front of you and roll your palms so that they are facing away from your body. Very gently, push your hands toward the wall, allowing your shoulder blades to release forward. If you’re not one to get out of bed right away, try the same moves by sitting up straight with your legs out in front of you. Even in bed, these simple stretches can help you to start feeling awake and alert.

At Work: Stretching a few times during work can help to relieve tension, reduce stress and improve focus. Stretching is especially important for those who work in an office as it allows for subtle, yet important movement that is often sacrificed by sitting most of the day. If you work at a desk, try raising your arms over your head and lean from right to left several times. Tilt your head gently forward, backward and side to side onto each shoulder for a subtle, yet effective neck stretch. For a lower body stretch, balance your heels on the floor and move your feet front to back and in circular motions. You may feel this most in your calves and shins.

Before Bed: Incorporating subtle stretches before bed can help the body to wind down, allowing you to feel relaxed for better sleep. Lay on your bed or the floor with your legs straight up against the wall at a comfortable angle, with your arms by your side. Inhale and exhale for a few breaths while you feel the stretch on the back of your legs. For a back stretch, sit with legs crossed, arms raised, and round your back forward until your hands are as close as possible to the floor or surface of the bed in front of you. For an additional stretch, continue to sit with legs crossed and twist your torso and head carefully from right to left.

Do you know that the number of times that stretching is done would normally be more than once on a daily basis? The average count is three times a day. It is the ideal counting on how often stretching should be performed. But some people stretch when they need it. The more times that you do stretching, the more that it can help your body.

Such instances would likely apply to someone who sits in front of his computer all day long. It includes the feeling of being tired, tensed, and stressed. A little arm stretching for both sides could relieve such troubles. Some do it when exercising and others stretch most likely before sleeping because it helps someone acquire a comfortable sleep the whole sleeping duration. Also, if you are in the middle of a huge traffic, instead of getting bad vibes throughout the day, why not stretch the bad vibes away? It could help out, too.

If your body needs to perform movements which require substantial flexibility, this is a notice that a morning stretching can contribute a lot. If you exercise more often, stretching can also be done before or after a workout. Individuals who are suffering from poor postures really need a daily stretching. It can assist with back pain problems. For over 30 years of age, stretching more often can help out with muscle tightening. It is an excellent idea to stay flexible even at an old age because it can enhance the body activities.

Anyhow, stretching doesn’t give limitations to just the typical scenarios mentioned above, many are still unnoticeable because stretching is done normally. It is done anywhere and everywhere. As long as it is properly managed, stretching is beneficial.

If you are a health conscious individual or an athlete, either way, you should never ignore the worth of stretching your body regularly. This is very helpful, given that it’s done properly.

Indeed, you read it right. There are also particular disadvantages in stretching and these might give you something to worry about. But were not here to give you worries, and in fact, we’ll be giving you some heads-up tips to on what we should Do and what to avoid when were on our way to our stretching routines.

Are you ready? Here are the lists to help your stretching habits become health-beneficial as intended. It’s all about being healthy after all.

Let’s begin.

DO’s of Stretching

Do warm Ups before stretching because this will make the muscles, ligaments, and tendons be easily stretched.

Do the 30-second stretching per muscle group. The minimum time per stretch will 10 seconds. In most healthy people, this is adequately helpful to increase range of motion. But let the muscle lengthen slowly because it must not be forced.

Do make sure that the muscles are warm and not cold after warm-up and workout.

Do contract-relax and hold-relax in stretching and do breather deeply through each stretch.Do learn to listen to your own body so that you will know its capacity.

DON’Ts of Stretching

Don’t overstretch your muscles to the point that you are hurting yourself. Be patient enough.

Don’t bounce the stretch because instead of lengthening your muscles effectively, the opposite will occur.

Don’t overextend your joints in stretching. Bending them farther than it is meant to go could cause injury.

Don’t do stretching when you are planning to run and do other intensive physical activities.

Stretching is good to the human’s health but you should see to it that you are always doing it properly.

Most health conscious people do stretching usually after getting off from bed in the morning. Stretching usually goes along with yawning. This is a fresh start towards a healthy muscle. But why stretching really works?

Stretching is also a form of exercise. It can be done daily or as part of your healthy routine. Various stretching exercises are enough to aid physical injuries. However, it should be done properly. There should be a guide to proper stretching to make it work and gain good effects to the body. Stretching works to those who have full knowledge in its proper application because it can be dangerous when performed incorrectly. It might be as simple as extending both arms wide after waking up but it is, indeed, requiring a heavy inquiry.

Everyone knows stretching. Even a baby stretches when yawning. It is part of every day’s measure to physical fitness whether you are exercising or not. You could also do stretching after a workout for quicker recovery. It feels good, actually, because a workout usually results to tired body.

Stretching works to the body where there is muscle tightness. You don’t have to stretch your overall body, focus on that part instead. And for the muscles to be flexible enough, stretching properly on a daily basis could greatly help. It also increases blood and nutrient supply to the muscles which can reduce muscle discomfort.

Do you know that stretching can improve your proper posture? Poor posture is not pleasant to look at and stretching can effectively reduce aches and pains in different parts of the body. It can also help the mind for revitalization because it gives off physical and mental tension.

By having innumerable benefits, stretching is truly essential and must be part of one’s healthy habits. This could, by far, an encouragement to do such thing the appropriate way along with daily exercises.

Be fit and have a healthier body even at work! Here are some recommended office exercises you can do at the office.

Every one of us wants to be healthy and physically fit. And who wouldn’t right? We all want to feel better and have a longer life in health. But, one can’t achieve such a healthy body with a weak immune system. We can build this up by having a healthy lifestyle, eating healthy food, having a healthy diet, and regular exercise. But most of the time, it’s the latter that we always find hard to have mostly because of those busy working schedules and office work needed to earn a living. But there’s a workaround with this situation, and despite our hours being spent in the office, having a regular exercise is still achievable with some office exercises we can do during break time or while working. Nothing will absolutely hinder you from keeping a healthy lifestyle, definitely not work!

Learn about these exercises and try hitting two birds in one stone: Or should we say staying healthy while making a living. Now that’s a healthy living, right?

Take the stairs instead of riding elevators or escalators– If your office isn’t on the ground floor, start taking stairs instead of taking the usual elevator ride you do every day. It can be a good cardio exercise, and it makes your legs stronger.

Turn waiting time into calf- strengthening time– If you are waiting for copies to print or photocopy, instead of standing you transform it into an office exercise by lifting your heels up and down until you feel a mild but satisfying burn in your calves.

Wrist Stretch– It is important for your wrist and fingers to maintain its blood circulation from exhaust typing. You can do a simple stretch extending an arm in front, palm up, and grabbing the fingers with other hand. Gently pull the fingers towards you so that the fingers will be stretched.

Chair Squat– Let’s get that painful back exercised! Lift up until your hips are just hovering over the chair, arms out of balance. Hold for 2-3 seconds and stand all the way up.

Side Bends– Let’s get your abdominal muscle get exercised, too! Hold a water bottle in both hands and stretch it up over the head, arms straight. Bend towards the left (or right and vice versa) as far as you can to contract the abs.These may be just simple stretches and unnoticeable type of exercises, but you’ll be surprised on how they help your body stay in form before, during, and on your way to finish work. That’s easy, right?

Wake up. Fix the beddings. Take a bath. Eat Breakfast. Prepare for work then leave. This is the typical scenario of an employee working on a day shift. Unfortunately, because time is so swift to pass after waking up in the morning, this falls as a daily routine. Have you forgotten something? Yes, a morning body stretching. Exercises at the office are not that hard to perform even if an employee is in front of his desk and forgot to exercise at home.

Exercise is an activity of a body that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness. This is being performed to strengthen some parts of a human’s body and boost the immune system. Below are some tips and exercises that a worker can do in the office.

1. Stretching: It involves the wrist and arms that can be done even when you are sitting in your chair. You can stretch your wrist, forearm, and lower back. In stretching your wrist, extend your arm in front, palm up and grab the fingers with other hand. Pull your fingers towards you to stretch the forearm and hold it for 20-30mins, and then do this on the other side.

2. Squatting: You can do the chair squatting or one-leg squat. These exercises at the office can help the hip, arms and feet in balance. Just make sure that your chair is stable while squatting. While sitting, you just have to lift up until your hips are hovering over the chair and arms out for balance. Hold these 2-3 seconds, stand all the way up and repeat the process for 16 repetitions.

3. Breathing: 5-10 reps breathing from lower rib cage, from mid-rib cage and from upper rib cage. While sitting upright in the chair with head retracted back, exhale forcefully; breathe out as much air as you can.

4. Squeezing: This is the straight-arm squeeze. Simply sit up straight on edge of chair with feet and legs together, abs engaged, arms extended behind you and palms in. Next is squeezing the arms in against chair back then release. Do 10 repetitions and on last squeeze, move the arms up and down 1 inch and repeat.

Now, who says that there are no exercises at the office while you are busy working? You should try these steps and stay fit all day!

The amount of hours spent sleeping greatly affects one’s attitude towards work. These days, less and less employees get to enjoy an ample enough of sleep, thus resulting to more and more unhappy employees.

It’s not really just the numbers of hours that make a good sleep, but the quality of sleep. And what’s the secret to a better sleeping habit? It has something to do with avoiding electronics. Those on the bed email checking, stock market last looks, and even checking on your social media profiles at bed greatly affects your sleep and takes up an hour or so of sleep. Avoid it, sleep more. That simple.

Breaking a sweat
Work related exercise can come from the most common ways of everyday routine. Longer walks from the parking spot to the office are one way to get an exercise on the way to work. But if you’re not having much exercise working, it might be great to consider yoga or Pilates, walking or slight jogs after work, sports of any kind, and maybe dance classes may be a great way to have exercise to compliment work.

Family Time
Though a lot of people have it unnoticed, family time or time spent with significant others greatly affect ones happiness. A rich personal life makes a happier employee, as well as having positive relationships with friends or significant others brings forth improvement in your health and reduce loneliness that brings work related stress.

Family problems do affect ones state of mind, and can keep you nightly, causing further sleeping problems.

Eating Healthier
To make it short, less junk food makes a happier self. Healthier eating habits call for a healthier you. And this goes true in the working place.

Less Alcohol
As with any everyday life, taking less alcohol makes for a healthier body. Weekend drinking may cause one to be less effective at work at the start of the week. Though it has been often said that occasional drinking does have some bodily benefits (stress reliever or a more relaxed state of mind), most drinking sessions often leads past the point of healthier benefits. And in most cases, drinking leads to lesser sleeping time.

With these in mind, I hope you’ll get to understand that a having a happier job doesn’t always entails quitting one where you are unhappy of, but looking into some internal factors which may be tweaked to achieve the happy working attitude one needs.

We experience a lot of changes as we get older. For those who are planning to work until their retirement age will definitely have to keep up with a lot of things. We will move slower, eat lesser, we will become a bit physically inactive and the hardest part is we will forget a lot of things! It’s unavoidable and pretty hard to accept. It is possible for us to retain a pretty good memory even as we age. We must remember that being forgetful plus old age can put our job on the line.

Get enough sleep as much as you can. We can’t deny that there are days that we really have to stay late to beat a deadline or to attend work-related occasions. If we constantly deprive ourselves with sleep, the tendency is our brain will not function in its full capacity.

Eat a lot of fruit and vegetables. The most common quality in this type of food is what we call “antioxidants”. Antioxidants protect our brain from free radicals which cause damage to our brain.

Don’t clog up your circulation with fats and plaques. This will decrease the blood flow to your brain and will result to cognitive impairment.

Lastly, wine has been proven to help improve memory and cognition. But take note that wine should be taken in moderation. A glass for women and 2 glasses for men daily is perfect. Because of its vasodilating capabilities and with its resrsevatrol contents, wine increases blood supply to our brain thus preventing the most common disease related to old age, Alzheimer’s.

If you think you need help from a health professional, trust your instinct. Wellness and prevention is better that cure.

We can’t prevent stress at work. What we can do is to maintain a specific level of anxiety as much as possible. A normal anxiety level can be helpful in different ways. It slightly increases our respiration which can be helpful in taking in more oxygen to our brain. It makes us alert and very responsive. Anxiety about an upcoming deadline can make us work harder and be keen to details.

How do we maintain a normal level of anxiety whenever we face something new, a bit difficult task or a deadline? Slow and deep breathing is very helpful. If you are having a hard time controlling your breathing pattern, stop whatever you are doing and just close your eyes to focus.

Do this even for a minute and you will immediately feel relaxed. Another thing that we can do is to keep a to-do list. Having our own to-do list can help us prioritize and keep track of our work progress. It’s an OC kind of way which is a good thing. Having a bit of this attitude at work is beneficial. There is no denying that cramming is stressing and can eventually lead you to losing your job. There is another way to maintain a normal level anxiety or totally relieve stress at work. Get enough sleep. As we get old our duration of sleep changes. An adult must have a minimum of 6 hours sleep and a maximum of 8-10 hours. Take note that prolonged sleep can also mean a person could have an underlying health problem. If we get enough sleep, chances of a happy day is high. We will be able to respond positively to almost anything in our day’s work and we will accept every task as a challenge rather than a burden.

There is so much to do around the office. From the moment we log in up to the last second of our shifts. We spend five or six days a week in the office. It doesn’t matter how we do our jobs, as long as it gets done.

When we do a lot of things, time flies so fast and we hardly feel tired not until we make our way home. In every physical task that we do, there is a proper body mechanics that we should follow. Here are common office tasks that require a proper body mechanics. These tasks are usually not considered to be important. But it’s time to think again.

Let’s start out with 3 simple things that we usually experience in the office. You’ll be surprised at how easy these tasks are.

Sitting. Make sure that the level of the chair that you are using is just right for the height of your office desk. This will prevent you from slouching that will result to back pain. Sit straight and relax while breathing normally. Always make sure that your shoulder muscle is not tensed. You can fix that by consciously relaxing it. This can also be done to other muscle groups.

Lifting. Always check the weight of the object you are lifting. Maintain a wide base by keeping your feet apart to prevent the possibility of slipping. Bend your knees and hold the object as close as possible to you and slowly lift the object up. It Is always safe to ask for help or use a device that can assist in prevent yourself from having a back injury.

Picking up fallen objects (papers, ball pen, etc.). It is better to bend your knees instead of just bending your back forward to pick up any fallen objects.

Repetition can help you build a habit. Repeat the things that can cause good things to you. Influence your colleagues to practice good body mechanics too!